THE RUINS,
OR, MEDITATION ON THE REVOLUTIONS OF EMPIRES
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INVOCATION.
Hail, solitary ruins! holy sepulchres, and silent walls! you I
invoke; to you I address my prayer. While your aspect averts, with
secret terror, the vulgar regard, it excites in my heart the charm
of delicious sentiments--sublime contemplations. What useful
lessons! what affecting and profound reflections you suggest to him
who knows how to consult you. When the whole earth, in chains and
silence, bowed the neck before its tyrants, you had already
proclaimed the truths which they abhor, and confounding the dust of
the king with that of the meanest slave, had announced to man the
sacred dogma of Equality! Within your pale, in solitary adoration
of Liberty, I saw her Genius arise from the mansions of the dead;
not such as she is painted by the impassioned multitude, armed with
fire and sword, but under the august aspect of justice, poising in
her hand the sacred balance, wherein are weighed the actions of men
at the gates of eternity.
O Tombs! what virtues are yours! you appal the tyrant's heart, and
poison with secret alarm his impious joys; he flies, with coward
step, your incorruptible aspect, and erects afar his throne of
insolence.
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